Ups and downs

London’s planned Shard Of Glass building will include a ground-breaking lift system.

In your article on London’s ‘Shard of Glass’ building, (High technology) you say the lifts and elevators will be central to the building’s evacuation strategy.

This method was adopted in, among others, the Twin Towers Petronas building in Kuala Lumpur.

The subject of a recent Channel Five documentary, it is hard to see how any other method could work for buildings of this height, when you think of the evacuation rate of office buildings just a few storeys high.

But how does this square with the automatic stops in the event of dangerous conditions mentioned in the same article?

J Gray, Warwicks

I was concerned to see from the caption to one of the photographs accompanying your article ‘High technology’ that London’s planned Shard Of Glass building will ‘include a ground-breaking lift system’. I trust this will be left out of the final commission! Adrian Leach, Salisbury, Wilts

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